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Work 4 Peace,Hold All Life Sacred,Eliminate Violence! This is my often neglected blog mostly about my travels across country in my mobile billboard truck as I attempt to engage in dialogue with people in hopes to wake us up and inspire action to change our country and communities and selves. And it is froth with my opinions, insights, analyses toward that end of holding all life sacred, dismantling the empire and eliminating violence while creating the society and life we want

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Honor the Real Warriors

Peace WarriorsZanne Joi and Rae Abileah

“Warriors, warriors we call ourselves. We fight for splendid virtue, for high endeavor, for sublime wisdom, therefore we call ourselves warriors.” –Anguttara Nikaya

We would like to call into our rally today those warriors who are rarely praised or honored: the women of all times.

To the warriors who bury their dead, care for the wounded, and clean the battlefields of their countries and homes.

Stop the war.

To the warriors who have survived rape and assault while serving in the military or just trying to walk home at night.

Begin healing.

To the warriors for peace who have the audacity to envision – and work towards - a world without wars—Barbara Lee, Helen Caldecot, Dolores Huerta, Aung Sang Suchee.

Create peace!

To the warriors who walk without weapons and are vulnerable to those who are armed to the teeth.

Stop the war.

To the warrior activists whose weapons are words, art, music, their bodies.

Begin healing.

To the warriors in Iraq who are organizing orphanages, providing safe drinking water, healing the sick with limited medicines, and daring to march in the streets of Baghdad to call for peace while surrounded by guns on all sides.

Create peace!

To the warrior who refuses to serve in Iraq.

Stop the war.

To the soldier who returns from battle, lays down his weapon, and becomes a man warrior against war.

Begin healing.

To the warrior who resists enlistment and says, “I will not kill.”

Create peace!

To the warrior who dares to raise her son to believe that peace and equality is the only way.

Stop the war.

To the warrior who searches for the good heart inside every person.

Begin healing.

To the warrior who risks her job to teach peace and the history of resistance in the classroom.

Create peace!

To the warrior who understands that killing a terrorist, an insurgent, a child is like killing a part of herself, the warrior who knows we are all connected.

Stop the war.

To the warrior who chooses to give up the privileges of a country fueled by war and embraces a vision of a country fueled by compassion.

Begin healing.

To the warrior who risks her life to report the real story in conflict zones in war and in conflict zones in the newsroom.

Create peace!

To the warrior in Congress who faces accusations of not supporting our troops when she votes to defund the war.

Stop the war.

To the warrior who knows not to give up after one rally, one vigil, one election and keeps showing up every day for peace.

Begin healing.

To the warrior who refuses to follow orders, steps out of rank and retires to join the anti-war movement.

Create peace!

To the warrior on duty who is ordered to arrest peaceful demonstrators and chooses to negotiate with her commanding officer on their behalf instead.

Stop the war.

To the warrior who marched into the front lines to grab her son by the ear and drag him home.

Begin healing.

To the warrior who doesn’t make convenience and affordability excuses to justify damaging the environment. To the warrior who protects and honors the most valiant warrior—the mother earth.

Create peace!

Disarm, disarm these warriors shout through the bars of ridicule, the walls of hopelessness, and the noose of misunderstanding. Disarm. Lay down the weaponry of your fear, hatred, and hurting.

Honor the Warrior: Stop the War

NO! I HATE this mentality, that we can separate the soldier from his deeds, his work. We cannot. We must not.

I agreed last week to drive the truck down to Santa Barbara with Rae, who has been asked to speak at this rally – prior to knowing this theme.

The bottom line is, if there were not soldiers willing to fight, rich men could not have wars – no one would be there to fight them.

We want to think humans have fought wars for just and noble causes – even those of us who are left-leaning or liberal democrats, or even just average Americans, want to believe there have been even a few wars that have been for ideals.

How often have white men chuckled condescendingly to inform me that if there had not been war, I would not be free to be American & worship my god. They are of course, referring to the revolutionary war against England way back in the day.

I don’t recall the Church of England or the Pope or whomever sending troops here to march folks off to church. I seem to recall the protest was against paying taxes to England. They held a tea party, not a communion party, as I recall – white men dressing up as native men so they’d have yet another reason to kill native men should they get caught. But that’s yet another book.

I saw a quote the other day that said we fought the American Revolution for the right to pay taxes to rich men living here, rather than rich men living overseas.

Then there’s WWII, the one where I lost most of my biological family, the one that made my mother a refugee, an exile from the only country she ever knew. People love to claim we entered that war to save Jews – HA! We entered that war to protect our interests in Hawaii and around the world. We had MANY opportunities to stop Hitler before it even got to war – as we have had many opportunities to stop Bush.

I can no more honor the soldier and not the killing then I can honor the gun and not the bullets. Soldiers are doing a horrific job of a horribly failed society, ‘work’ that should not be glorified or hyped into some honorable, desirable, valiant thing.

But the other bottom line, prior to the soldier, is this idealizing of this horrific act to the point of even calling him a ‘warrior’. Our whole social mentality, that it is acceptable to train our children to be willing to kill and/or be killed, is really the bottom line. The responsibility for war begins and ends with each one of us.

Rae has assured me we can go & deal with this, among those people who are our allies in ending this war.

It is cold, dark and rainy as we set out this morning. The rain has begun; the fog has settled; dark escorts us out the city south and to this action as we search for words to express our honor for the real warriors.

About Me

i'm now a 67, almost 68 (who am I kidding almost fuckin 70!!!) yr old (still with a golden age pass to get into national parks FREE) jewish lesbian anti-racist mother - and grandmother - striving radical womonist/feminist; daughter & granddaughter of survivors of the holocaust, mother of a young amazon healer & amazing human being, lover of wimmin & student of conscious living............even tho i am the one actually driving the truck, i could not even head out from home if it were not for the support of many, many, many wimmin (and several men as well). i am now working on trying to publish my book "But What Can I Do? A Handbook for change: myself, my community, my country. I still continue to offer Racism Awareness workshops geared for White people, NO DRONES workshops, and any other that is needed. if you want to help support this journey, email me!